William Douglas Meriwether (November 3, 1761
- January 21, 1845)

William Douglas Meriwether was the son of Nicholas and Margaret Douglas
Meriwether of “Clover Fields.” After his
father’s death in 1772, William inherited “Clover Fields”,
a part of the original Meriwether land grant. Like his father, he was a
surveyor. When Meriwether Lewis returned to Virginia to obtain an education, he
stayed with his cousin William, who likely taught him some rudiments of
surveying. In a letter of 1790, Lewis mentioned that his cousin might teach him
geography. William married Elizabeth Lewis (b. 1769), the daughter of Nicholas
and Mary Walker Lewis in 1788. They had six children but only their youngest
daughter, Margaret Douglas Meriwether and her husband Frank Thornton Meriwether
had children. (Anderson, p. 153) It was
Margaret and her second husband, Francis Kinloch Nelson, who built the current
“Clover Fields.”